Written by: Alex Verdiaz, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Have you been in a career, relationship, life transition before? If you have, I am sure you know that when you are transitioning. Life tends to feel stuck and overwhelmed. The ease of regular life is not there.
During a transition, time is always needed to reflect, turn inwards, learn, and recognize that where you are in the right place for now, even if it does not feel that way.
You may also seek support, guidance, mentorship, and strategy to help you walk the bridge from present to future.
Yet, there are different things you can do for yourself to aid this process and make it a little easier for you. Help you feel great, help you understand where you are at and how you can transition better.
These days many of us have the knowledge of helpful resources in our toolbox to assist us with our personal & professional development, yet what I see has helped in moments of transitioning is getting back into the flow.
When you are in flow, you have focus. You feel control of activities/goals you wish to do and reach. You have better emotions. You enjoy more of what you are doing, so you feel fulfillment. You are more energized, greater happiness and motivation.
Everyone has their own unique flow; it is about living in harmony with you.
Take a river, for instance. It flows downstream and with ease, yet going upstream is a different approach, feeling, effort, mind, and body.
Having helped many women with their career change, it is obvious that if you are thinking of a career change or know without a doubt, it is needed more than likely, you will have some negativity around you – either in your internal or external environment or possibly both.
Being in an environment where you feel burnt out, no longer valued, around toxic colleagues/managers, or unfulfilled with your position, tasks and role surely make discovering and changing to a new career that much more difficult.
But what if getting your flow back will help support this career transition, help you with the decisions and change that lay ahead? What if you were able to feel great again and excited about the future?
No matter the excuses or reasons you tell yourself that make you feel stuck, make career transition harder and make you feel like life is not great, not fair. I believe getting back into flow will help, and one way to do this is changing your story.
We may not have control over some things in life, and we can say that in certain areas of life, not having control can make us feel powerless and renders us to being and doing what we do not wish for at times.
Yet, we can control the story we tell ourselves. I am not suggesting lying or making up incredible fantasies but shifting your perspective, changing the angle you view things, and writing a new story.
We all have control over the stories we want to tell, and these stories have a massive impact on how you and others will respond and react.
A simple example of this is you may ask me, “How was your day, Alex?”, and I can choose to reply with whichever - I can choose to say, “Thanks for asking, my day was ok, my hips and my lower back hurt today and I am in pain” or I can choose to say “Thanks for asking, my day was great, the sun came out, I took myself out for my favorite coffee, walked along the waterfront, and enjoyed soaking in the spa after.”
Both answers are true and explain my day, and either story will make you respond with sympathy to my body pain or joy to my day out.
You can see how easy it is to share a story that will indicate how someone will react or respond, and at the same time, it will also create a negative or positive flow for yourself.
So why change the story you tell yourself?
You can begin by looking at your environment and becoming aware of the main negative triggers within.
Look at how you can change the story by:
Releasing the negative, you feel about it
Not focusing on how this plays out and how it ends,
Looking for the difference, what is the story you are currently live out of?
How does the story affect how I see myself?
Is there another way you can interpret the situation?
Is there a different “character” you can play here?
What needs to happen for you to be in flow?
These will help you begin to think differently about your environment and write a new story.
Remember it is your view so that you can change it. It is “a” thought of about 30,000 - 50,000 thoughts you have in one day. You have the capacity to control where you put your thoughts.
Bring a state of flow to your life today and see the difference it will make to your internal and external environments.
You have been where you are now before, meaning you can change, you can transition. However, make it a little easier on yourself while you do.
Take the life lessons learned, seek out the support needed for career transition, and do not wait for the hard to go away to be happy. Create it now by changing your story and be inflow.
Alex Verdiaz, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Alex Verdiaz is committed to helping mid-aged women create their version of work-life balance.
Being optimistic and visionary has been the catalyst for Alex to show women that it is possible to live an extraordinary life and has helped her develop and grow her Career Change business.
“How can you figure out what you want to do next if you do not know who you are today” statement has helped many women realize that reconnecting to your true self is imperative in a career change and finding that new career which will give you longevity, fulfillment, and happiness.
Alex’s Change Factor and Discover Your Next Career programs have helped women fully understand who they are, who they want to be and make the change to achieve their work-life balance.
Her “nothing is impossible” attitude is infectious, her style is supportive and firm, her strategy focuses on your success solely, and her dedication to helping women is with open arms as she wants the world to have a better balance of women in fulfilled careers and living a lifestyle they want.
